UPDATE: Sites of Cosmopolitanism: Citizenship, Aesthetics, Culture (Australia) (4/30/05; 7/6/05-7/8/05)

Abstract due date extended to April 30.
New information about Keynote Speakers has been added

Sites of Cosmopolitanism: Citizenship, Aesthetics, Culture
July 6-8, 2005
Griffith University, Southbank Campus, Brisbane, Australia

The concept of cosmopolitanism is currently enjoying a strong resurgence
across the social sciences and humanities. Cosmopolitanism is of interest
to theorists and practitioners alike in a range of disciplines, including
architecture and urban planning, cultural studies, sociology and political
science, history, philosophy, law and fine arts.

Cosmopolitanism as understood in contemporary social theory is associated
with the increased mobilities of global populations which are commonly
heralded as an indicator of the contemporary time-space compression and as
the ultimate victory of the new global social, economic, political and
cultural environment. Not only are modern individuals continuously caught
in a tension between the local and the global but, more importantly, these
changes are seen as responsible for the creation of a new kind of
contemporary identities that are quite different from the traditional
ones: presumably more open, tolerant and flexible. In the contemporary
literature such new identity dispositions are identified with the notion
of cosmopolitanism.

The notion of cosmopolitanism is more than 2000 years old and it means
that individuals feel as ?citizens of the world? rather than people who
are exclusively attached to local communities and environments. Somewhat
contradictory, the notion of cosmopolitanism has been resurrected against
the backdrop of new global inequalities, war on terror and new anxieties
associated with the spread of the global economy and new constellations of
international power.

Conference themes:

Citizenship
 cosmopolitan citizens ? who are they?
 governance and cosmopolitan individuals
 working-class cosmopolitans
 cosmopolitanism and its relationship to western liberalism
 cosmopolitanism and racism
 Australia?s political climate and the possibility of cosmopolitanism
 Cosmopolitanism and terror
 Cosmopoliticians?

Aesthetics
 cosmopolitan spaces
 the design of cosmopolitan zones
 the cosmopolite body
 laboratories of advanced cosmopolitanism: airports? hotels? refugee
camps?
 literary cosmopolitanisms/cosmopolitan canons
 imaging cosmopolitanism

Culture
 cosmopolitanism and consumption theory
 historical cosmopolitanisms
 cosmopolitan theologies
 the cosmopolitan consumer omnivore
 the disseminators of cosmopolitanism, eg designers, marketers, architects
 cosmopolitanism and the metropolitan experience
 cosmopolitanism and the media
 cosmopolitan sexualities

Dr David Ellison
School of Arts, Media and Culture
Macrossan Building N16, Nathan Campus
Griffith University
Brisbane, Queensland 4111

ph: 61 7 3875 7906
Fax: 61 7 3875 5187

Co-Convenor Sites of Cosmopolitanism Conference, Brisbane July 6-8 2005
http://www.griffith.edu.au/centre/cpci/cosmo/home.html

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Received on Sun Apr 24 2005 - 10:19:25 EDT